Call me crazy or naive, but I don't understand conservatism anymore. What is it? Can it even be defined? Based on the bizarre array of fringe figures at CPAC, I think they're having a serious identity crisis.

They are. This is a pretty good read on one Republican's take on how things are changing:

Conservatism is morphing before our eyes. There was a time around the Civil War when the Democrats were pro-slavery and the Republicans were anti-slavery. Today, the Democrats are pro-minority and the Republicans are anti-minority, but the Republicans have become ever more extreme over the past 10 years.

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People are now conflating Trump, Bannon and Moore with modern conservatism, and who am I to say they're wrong?

Trump is who Republicans chose to lead them so that's who the Republican Party is now. If Republicans were abandoning Trump in droves after seeing how he conducts himself in office, that'd be one thing, but that's not happening.

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And if Alabama is the reddest state, then the assumption is that they represent a pure, more correct form of Republican conservatism.